Facebook and the cheeky T&C re: photos and videos

[graciousness]

So, under Facebook's Terms and Conditions, it states this:

2. Sharing Your Content and Information

You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings. In addition:

For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos ("IP content"), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook ("IP License"). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.

Now, to my understanding, this means that any photos or videos that we put on our facebook account can be used by Facebook free of charge, any place, any where, for any purpose that they want. There is this one section that I am a little vague about, and that is the subject to our Privacy and Application settings. Does this mean that Facebook, then, is restricted to the use of our account content unless we indicate that everyone can view our account or photos/videos?

I'm not a lawyer and could be completely wrong about my interpretation of the T&C, so would someone kindly shed some light on this and confirm or explain?

I think this is a very important issue for professional photographers out there who make their living off their photos and use facebook. Well, it's important to any of us as they can just use any of our photos for whatever purpose they want. I cringe at the thought.

Cheers.

[theosus]

Im wondering if it's to cover how their system works... For example, one of your friends "tags" themselves in your photo. Your picture then shows up on their page. Without some granting of license to use the picture that way, the copyright freaks might sue, saying that was a violation by Facebook. You set who can do that by your privacy rules. My page is private, only friends see my stuff. Therefore only friends could tag themselves in my pictures.

This would also cover cases where Facebook pages are displayed in the media. Say the page has your picture on it just because you commented on someones page. Facebook doesn't have to get your permission or pay you for the use of the content...

[Jim Poor]

This has been covered time and again. The part the fear-mongers always gloss over is
[quote[ subject to your privacy and application settings:[/quote].

It's not a rights grab.

Yes, FB has plenty of issues with their complex privacy settings and such, but the photo rights bit is essentially a non-issue.

[dakwegmo]

The terms are actually fairly limiting and while most people focus on the seemingly broad nature of the world-wide, transferable, sub-licensable, nature of the license, they seem to completely ignore those parts that limit the license, making it useless for anything other than making Facebook work the way that it does.

1. As Jim pointed out, the license is subject to your privacy and application settings. So if you only allow your friends on Facebook to view photos, then what else could they possibly do with them? They can't go and print post cards or calendars with your photos, since doing so would mean they could only give those to your friends.

2. The license ends when you delete your content or your account. What this means is that facebook couldn't make any long term plans to use specific photos, because at any time you could revoke their license. The portion about sharing with others who have not deleted applies to the messaging system. If you send someone a message it will stay in their inbox until they delete it, even if you remove your account, if you had a photo attached to the message, then they can continue to show the recipient the message until they delete it.

3. At no point during the process of adding photos or videos are you required to or even given the option of providing a model release. In order for Facebook to use your photos of people for anything other than editorial purposes, they would need the permission of everyone in the photo. Since they don't have it, the usefulness of any people photos becomes extremely limited.

With this in mind, I don't think there's anything to worry about with the current Facebook Terms of Service. It seems pretty evident to me that what they are trying to do, is make sure they are covered legally for using your IP to run Facebook. I don't expect them to suddenly start up a micro-stock site filled with user submitted photos, nor do I expect them to start selling prints of photos culled from their users' albums. Their business model is based on selling highly targeted advertising. They aren't likely to risk the billions in advertising revenue, for the few million they could make misappropriating users photos and videos.

[windrider86]

Upload only low resolution images and water mark them in such a way that it is too hard to remove so therefore not worth taking.

[graciousness]

Cheers for all your replies!

I don't consider myself a paranoid person, I think, when it comes to the internet. I buy stuff with credit cards, put personal info every time you subscribe to any sites, so I do think there's enough information out there about me if anyone really wants to screw me. I can't spend my life being scared of consequences with anything I do online - I have the same access to information as they do with me and can screw someone else if I have to. But I have some trust with the world...I'd have to be pretty unlucky or really naughty if I get targeted.

The Facebook T&C was brought about because someone pointed it out to me and warned me about it. I did come to the same conclusion as you all have advised, however, I did want to re-confirm. I want to make sure that I can interpret simply and plainly to my friend (a photojournalist, mind you, and should really know this stuff but never mind) that they are safe to use facebook so long as they put the appropriate settings and use of watermarks (wisely, to the point where it would be very difficult to erase with photoshop).

At the same too, though, the clause can be really loosely interpreted should one's privacy and application settings are set to be visible to everybody. Facebook would have to be really evil and stupid if they really want to make money out of our photos and videos and use them for their own commercial purpose, but I doubt they would do any such thing as they would highly put their billion-dollar business to the toilet.

I'm sorry if this topic of discussion had come up many times previously. As you can see with the number of posts I've done, I'm a very new user to this forum and wouldn't be aware of such previous posts on the same subject.

Many thanks again for your replies.